Michelle Obama Makes Honest Confession About Daughters

Paige Catton Sun, August 30, 2026 at 12:36 AM UTC

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Originally appeared on E! Online

Michelle Obama is loving life as an empty nester.

The former first lady shared her honest thoughts on how she feels about her Barack Obama’s daughters Malia, 28, and Sasha, 25, no longer living at home, recalling the moment her kids moved out to go to college.

“I don’t miss ‘em,” Michelle told Jon Stewart on the Aug. 26 episode of her and her brother Craig Robinson’s IMO podcast. “I don’t. I love them. I’m going to see them tonight for dinner.”

And it seems that the 60-year-old’s thoughts differ than her husband’s. After all, Michelle shared that Barack—who served as President of the United States from 2009 to 2017—had an emotional reaction when Malia and Sasha left for college at Harvard University in 2017 and University of Southern California in 2019, respectively.

“Barack cried when they went to college. I was like, ‘Bye!” she jokingly admitted. “Now, Friday nights aren’t wrecked with terror and fear about, ‘Where are you?’”

As Michelle emphasized, “I love their emancipation and growth.”

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After Stewart—dad to son Nathan, 22, and daughter Maggie, 20, with wife Tracey McShane—asked Michelle if she missed the “job” of parenting, she bluntly responded, “No.”

“It gave meaning and pattern to my life,” Stewart added, to which Michelle candidly replied, “I’m good.”

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“Looking at all this meaning,” she continued, appearing to gesture to her and her brother’s podcast studio. “I have a wonderful pattern.”

While Stewart and Robinson agreed that they enjoy their kids’ schedules, Michelle quipped, “I love my schedule.”

“I have a great schedule,” she added, “and it's all mine.”

But the Becoming author pointed out that there’s a reason why dads may feel differently than moms about kids leaving the nest.

“I think fathers can be that way because you weren’t there from 6:00 to 9:00 at night, you missed a lot of it,” she shared. “I mean, I’ve had so much quality time with my children, so much. I know them inside and out.”

Instagram/Michelle Obama

Indeed, during Barack’s two terms in office, Michelle emphasized that her role first and foremost was always their daughters, notable calling herself “Mom-in-Chief.”

And now, many years later, she couldn’t be more grateful for the young women her daughters have become despite their rather unconventional upbringing in the White House.

“You both have grown into such brilliant and beautiful young women, making your way out there in the world,” Michelle told her daughters while giving a speech at the opening of Barack’s presential center in June. “Thank you for bringing so much joy and spirit and energy to a life you had no voice in choosing, and for making us proud every step of the way.”

For a closer look at more of Michelle and Barack’s candid confessions over the years, keep reading…

Barack Obama Was in No Rush to Get Married

Not that Harvard Law studentBarack Obamawasn’t in love withMichelle Obama(then Michelle Robinson), the associate assigned to look after him when he was an intern at her Chicago firm in the summer of 1988.He just hadn’t thought about what came next all that much.“For Michelle, marriage was a given—the organic next step in a relationship as serious as ours,” the former president wrote in his2020 memoirA Promised Land. “For me, someone who'd grown up with a mother whose marriages didn't last, the need to formalize a relationship had always felt less pressing."They tied the knot Oct. 3, 1992.Michelle Obama Did Not Want Barack Obama to Run for President

While Michellepubliclysupported Barack every step of the way to him winning the presidency in 2008, she really didn’t want her husband to run at all.“‘The answer is no. I do not want you running for president,’” he recalled his wife saying inA Promised Land. “’God, Barack, when is it going to be enough?’”OnNPR’sWild Cardpodcastin June 2025, Michelle called her and Barack’s accomplishments “the team ambition,” which she went along with, “arguably kicking and screaming.”Michelle Obama Didn’t Think Barack Obama Would Win the 2008 Presidential Election

In her 2018 memoirBecoming, Michelle wrote that she “had faith” in her husband but was “harboring a painful thought, one I wasn’t ready to share: I supported him in campaigning, but I also felt certain he wouldn’t make it all the way.”Michelle Obama Was Mad at Barack Obama for All 8 Years of His Presidency

“I’ve never fully got out of the dog house for this,” the former president toldStephen Colbertin November 2020. That is, for putting his family “through an extraordinarily stressful, difficult sequence in deciding to run for president, right after I had just gone through a tough [Senate] race.”And "Michelle stayed angry at me about it," he added. "It would flare up every so often, but she stayed mad about it through all eight years."The Obamas Went to Marriage Counseling

Michelle confessed that her husband’s schedule once he entered politics—he was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1997—took its toll on their marriage.“I’m flailing in the wind,” Michelle toldOprah WinfreyforEllein 2018. “And now I’ve got two kids, and I’m trying to hold everything down while he’s traveling back and forth from Washington or Springfield.”Subsequently, there was “work we had to do as a couple,” she said. “Counseling we had to do to work through this stuff."The Obamas Were Skeptical About Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Mirandafamously performed a song from his then-unfinished, future smash hitHamiltonat the White House in 2015. And you had to hear it to believe it, according to the president.After learning that Lin was writing a hip-hop musical aboutAlexander Hamilton, Barack wrote inA Promised Land, “We were politely encouraging but secretly skeptical, until he got up onstage and started dropping beats and the audience went absolutely nuts.”Why Michelle Obama Didn’t Go to Donald Trump’s Inauguration

After spendingDonald Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 “trying just to hold myself together,” as Michelle wrote inBecoming, she wasn’t going to put herself through that again.“One of the major decisions I made this year was to stay put andnot attend funerals and inaugurationsand all the things that I'm supposed to attend,” Michelle, who alsoskipped the January 2025 state funeral forJimmy Carter, said onWild Card, acknowledging the speculation that was kicked up in her wake.“Those are my choices. Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it. But I didn't regret it, you know?”Michelle Obama Thinks About Death a Lot Because She Loves Life

“My husband thinks this is morbid, but at 61, you know, if I am lucky, if I am truly blessed, I have like 25 more summers,” Michelle toldWild CardhostRachel Martin. “If you're not mindful about time, like—we've been out of office for 10 years.”She wanted “the next 10 years to go by slowly,” she explained. “Because guess what? I love life. I love my life…But what I feel is that if I'm not mindful about it, the years slip away.”Why Michelle Obama Will Never Run for President

Michelle will not be putting her daughtersMalia ObamaandSasha Obamathrough the aspiring-first-family experience again.“When people ask me would I ever run, the answer is no,” she said on a March 2025 episode ofKylie Kelce’sNot Gonna Liepodcast. “If you ask me that, then you have absolutely no idea the sacrifice that your kids make when your parents are in that role.”Even if she was interested, Michelle added, “The thought of putting my girls back into that spotlight when they are just now establishing themselves…They’ve already served their time.”Michelle Obama Is Glad She and Barack Obama Don’t Have a Son

“I'm so glad I didn't have a boy," Michelle said onIMOin June 2025. Asked by guestAngie Martinezwhy they didn’t try for baby No. 3, she cracked, "Because he would've been a Barack Obama. I would've felt for him."What the Obamas Really Think About Divorce Rumors

“The fact that people don't see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage,” a bemused Michelle said onWild Card. “It's like, ‘OK, so we don't Instagram every minute of our lives. We are 60.”She alsopromised that she wouldn’t be demureabout it if therewastrouble in paradise."If I were having problems with my husband, everybody would know about it," she shared on an April 2025 episode of theDiary of a CEOpodcast. "And he would know it and everybody would know it. I'm not a martyr…And I would be problem-solving in public, and be like, 'Let me tell you what he did.'”Sitting in on his wife and brother-in-law's podcast in July 2025, Barack joked that the rumors were behind them because “she took me back.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”